


Thaw

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Het, Rare Pair, Romance, mild spoilers for season three, safe if you've seen up to episode 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 03:05:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9301253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: The first time Joe sees Caitlin, it's on a still from a surveillance tape. The second time he sees her, it's at his house, as Cisco fills her in on what she's missed in the five years she's been away.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Theme: canon divergence  
> Any, any/any. They don't meet until 5 years later.  
> http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/702567.html?thread=92776295#t92776295

The first time he sees her, it's on a still from a surveillance tape, black and white and grainy but still clear enough to see why Singh's brow is furrowed and he's rubbing his head with that expression that Joe has come to associate with another meta-human. "Another one of your guys," he says as he slides the folder across his table to Joe, looking out of the window of his office like he's afraid someone's going to overhear what he's saying. "With a difference."

"Yeah?" Joe is flipping open the folder, stops when he hears Singh's answer to the question he hadn't even asked. 

"Looks like this one might be on our side."

Which would be a first for them, but it's something that the surveillance stills, the footage on the disc also inside the folder, bears out. There, in the middle of a robbery downtown, is a woman, manifesting ice from nowhere, making the robbers slip and slide all over the place, freezing them in ice shackles when they're down on the ground. 

"Damn." The word is part amazement, part admiration and Joe just about keeps back a low whistle. "Elsa got a name?"

Singh shakes his head. "Nothing yet." His eyes flick back over Joe's shoulder to the squad room beyond. "I thought your people might take a look at it."

Joe recognises the instruction for what it is. "I'll talk to my guy," he says, but they both know he's not talking about anyone from the squad room. 

He dispatches himself post haste to STAR Labs, explains himself to Cisco with the usual disclaimer. "Top secret, Cisco," he says and the younger man looks offended. 

"Four years we've been doing this, Joseph," he points out, sounding like Joe's Grandma Esther. "Five years we've known each other, if you're counting... and you have to ask me that."

Joe holds up his hands. "I know, I know..."

"I realise I'm under pressure what with your daughter taking The Flash out of commission for two whole weeks..." Joe fights the urge to mention that Cisco had also insisted that Barry and Iris take a proper honeymoon, far, far away from Central City and all forms of meta human activity; furthermore that he'd only said two days ago that Wally was more than capable of taking up the slack, something he'd begged Joe not to repeat to Barry. "But when have I ever been less than circumspect?" Joe opens his mouth to answer but before he can, Cisco holds up a hand. "Don't answer that."

"So, you want to take a look at this?" Joe holds out the disc, bites back a grin as Cisco snatches it from him and turns to slide it into one of the computers. 

The images Joe has seen frozen - no pun intended - in picture form spring to life on one of the big screens around the cortex and no sooner has the woman appeared on the screen than Cisco's jaw drops and he stares at the screen. "No..." he breathes, and Joe takes a step closer to him. 

"Cisco?" he asks after a few seconds, because Cisco is staring at the screen in front of him, eyes wide, mouth open, barely breathing. He's not talking either and that, in Joe's experience, is cause for alarm. "You know her?"

Cisco nods slowly. "Her name is Doctor Caitlin Snow," he says, not looking away from the screen. "And Barry and I met her Earth-2 doppelgänger when we were over there."

Barry hadn't told him much about that trip but Joe suddenly makes the connection. "Killer Frost?"

"I didn't think... I never..." Cisco runs his hand over his face, his jaw tight. "I haven't seen her since just after the explosion...

Joe makes a guess. "She worked here? At STAR Labs?" 

Cisco pauses the playback without tearing his eyes from the screen. "She...ah... she left. After everything. Didn't want to stay here when..." He swallows hard, does it again. "She was Ronnie's fiancée."

"Ronnie?" Because that was a part of the story that Joe had never heard before. "Firestorm Ronnie?"

"Yeah." Cisco runs a hand over his face. "We all worked here... together. When the accelerator blew... when Ronnie was in the pipeline... Caitlin and I were standing right outside the blast doors." He shudders, face paling. "If I dream about that night... and I do, believe me, I do... it's her scream I hear. Still." He blows a breath out between his lips. "I guess we were both affected by the explosion."

Joe looks at him pointedly, then at his cell phone sitting on the table beside his computer. "You still got her number?"

"I still have everyone's number." Cisco's voice is low but Joe doesn't miss it, and not for the first time in the last five years, his heart goes out to the young man. Sure, Barry spending nine months in a coma was no walk in the park; discovering he had meta human powers even less of one, as far as Joe was concerned at any rate. But aside from that, not much has changed in their relationship; the kid's still eating Joe out of house and home, just like he had when he was a teenager, they still have movie nights and family dinners and father-son talks. Joe still loves to tease him and Barry still gives as good as he gets. They're still a family. 

What Cisco lost the night the particle accelerator exploded - what he lost again when they found out about Wells - Joe sometimes couldn't fathom how the younger man was still standing. 

"I don't know if it still works," Cisco says, picking up his phone. "But I'll try." 

Turns out Doctor Caitlin Snow never changed her phone number, but she doesn't pick up when Cisco calls her. Maybe, Joe thinks, Cisco's not the only one with everyone's number still stored in their phone. He leaves a voice message, saying simply, "Hey, Caitlin, it's Cisco. I know it's been a while but I know you're back in town. And I know... I know a lot of things are different now. But I think I can help. Call me back, ok?"

It's a long almost forty-eight hours before she does and Cisco reports back to Joe that she's agreed to meet them. Not easily though - she refused point blank to set foot inside STAR Labs and Cisco hadn't wanted to risk meeting anywhere that they might be overheard. "So I kinda volunteered your place," he says to Joe. "I didn't think you'd mind."

Joe's enough of a detective, enough of a dad, to hear the doubt in that sentence but he doesn't comment on it. Instead he just says that it's no problem because whatever this woman's powers might be, she seems to be operating on the right side of the law. Besides, there's something in Cisco's voice, in his eyes, when he talks about her that makes Joe think it's all right to trust her. 

He's just hoping his gut isn't steering him wrong on that. 

"She's late." Cisco is pacing the floor of Joe's living room like an expectant father, glancing at his watch every few seconds. 

"By two minutes." Joe's not concerned - two minutes could be caused by her trying to find the house, trying to find somewhere to park her car. Cisco, though, stops pacing, stares at him like he's an idiot. 

"Caitlin's never late," he says flatly. "Caitlin is always early. Caitlin being on time is Caitlin being late. Caitlin actually being late-"

Whatever he was about to say is cut off by the chime of the doorbell and he clamps his mouth shut as he spins around on his heel. "You want to get that?" Joe says when Cisco shows no sign of moving. They'd agreed that it might be better for him to greet her, a familiar face to ease the path. That familiar face being Cisco, who Iris had once memorably described as being like a puppy, had made even more sense. 

The way Cisco's acting now, Joe will be surprised if the woman doesn't turn tail and run. 

"Right. OK." Cisco rubs his hands together, takes a deep breath and steps towards the door. 

When he swings it open, Joe gets his first proper look at Doctor Caitlin Snow and his first instinct is that she might just be the only person in the world who's more nervous than Cisco is right now. Her face is pale, gets even paler when she meets Cisco's eyes and she swallows hard. "Hello, Cisco."

"Caitlin." Cisco exhales her name then lurched forward and pulls her into a tight hug. She lets out a little huff of surprise, hesitates for a millisecond before she closes her arms loosely around him. She drops her arms quickly though and Cisco steps back, stuttering apologies. 

"Right... you don't like hugs. I forgot." He waves his arm in the vague direction of the living room. "Come in... this is Joe West... Joe, this is Caitlin Snow." 

"Nice to meet you." Joe holds out his hand and she takes it briefly. 

"Nice to meet you too," she says, before adding after a pause, "Detective." 

That makes Joe blink because there's no way she should have known that. Sure, it's mid-afternoon, but he's taken off his suit jacket and tie, made sure his badge and gun are safely locked away. He looks over at Cisco who is staring at him equally blank faced. 

A tiny smile hovers around Caitlin's lips. "I figured it can't be a coincidence that the first time I use my powers, you get in touch with me, Cisco." Cisco inclined his head, conceding the point. "So I checked out the news reports... recognised your name from a quote about having no leads to report." She lifts one eyebrow as she glances back at Joe. "I take it you're not about to arrest me." 

Joe meets her raised brow with one of his own. "The way you stopped those two goons, I'd give you a medal if I could. We don't get a lot of meta humans on our side." 

Caitlin's smile broadens and she looks pleased. When her gaze swings back to Cisco, though, she's curious again. "So where do you fit in to all this?" 

Cisco takes a deep breath before he gestures to the couch. Caitlin nods and they sit down at either end, Joe going for the armchair beside the fireplace. "All this..." Cisco says after a moment, "your powers, the meta humans... It's all because of the particle accelerator explosion." He pauses, like he's waiting for her to interrupt him, to question him. Caitlin says nothing. "You don't look surprised." 

She laughs softly and shakes her head; if anything, it makes Cisco look even more surprised. "A massive dark matter explosion destroys half the city and not too long after the first reports begin?" She tilts her head. "You know I don't believe in coincidence." 

Cisco's eyes narrow. "You've done your research." 

"This..." She holds up one hand and swirls of cold mist appear from it. Beside her on the couch, Cisco shivers. "Only started last year. I did my own tests as best I could... when I didn't find anything, I went to my mother's lab-"

"You talked to your mom? Voluntarily?" Cisco clamped his mouth shut as Caitlin's eyes narrowed. "Sorry. Not the point" 

"My mom is also in bio-medical research," Caitlin explains to Joe. "I thought she might have an insight. She didn't. Which is when I began to look further back. I found a blog..." She stops, looks at Joe and her eyes widen. "Written by Iris West..." 

Even though he's damned that blog many a time, Joe can't help but be proud at the fact that a total stranger knows his baby girl's name. "My daughter." 

Caitlin looks impressed. "Quite the family business," she observes and he doesn't contradict her. "Anyway, that convinced me that maybe I should look for answers in Central City." She spread her arms wide. "Here I am." 

Cisco rubs his hands together, looking nervous. "The dark matter explosion... It affected a lot of people. Doctor Wells... and there's a long story there, for another day... We tried to find them. We didn't succeed until..." He stops, looks at Joe. "Until we found The Flash," he ends. 

Caitlin is staring at Cisco. "You were right beside me that night," she says and her eyes are dark, serious. "Are you-"

"Yeah." Cisco takes a deep breath. "I can vibe things... When I touch them, I can see the future. Or the past." He pauses and Joe knows what's coming, braces himself. "Or into different universes."

The silence that follows is deafening. Caitlin stares at him, jaw slightly agape and it's an age before she speaks. "Did you just say... different... universes?"

Cisco nods and Joe leans forward in his seat. "Scotch?" 

Caitlin doesn't blink as her head turns to face him. "I think so." 

Cisco blinks as Joe stands and pours her a generous measure and he blinks again as she knocks half of it back in one gulp. "Tell me everything," she says and Cisco doesn't argue, starts talking and doesn't stop. He tells her about Wells and time travel, mentions Barry being the Flash, tells her about Zoom and alternate earths, and he even tells her about Ronnie, how he didn't die in the explosion, tells her about Firestorm and the singularity and how he saved the entire city. 

By the time he's finished, his voice is hoarse and Caitlin's glass is empty. Joe takes it from her freezing fingers, pours a small measure, pours another glass for Cisco who looks like he badly needs it. Caitlin accepts the glass with a quick, grateful smile in his direction, takes a small sip from it before turning to Cisco. 

"You said your abilities manifested after Wells killed you in the other timeline?" Cisco nods. "Last year... before I started to notice mine... I was in a car accident. Nothing serious, I wasn't hurt, just shaken... but the shock, the adrenaline..."

"You think that's what jump started your powers." 

Caitlin spreads her hands helplessly and shrugs. "Your guess is as good as mine." 

"We could do some tests... if you came to STAR Labs...."

"No." The word is firm and, if Joe's any judge of character, out of Caitlin's mouth before she even realises she's said it. "No," she says again, more softly. "I don't think I can go back there." 

Cisco holds up two hands in surrender. "Can you control your powers?" he asks and Joe knows he's thinking about whatever he saw over on Earth-2, not to mention what they've seen on this Earth when meta humans go out of control. Caitlin frowns but she nods and Cisco's breath leaves him in a whoosh of obvious relief. Her frown deepens, but she doesn't question him further. "Good," he says. "That's good." He shrugs as he glances at Joe. "You're taking this better than I thought you would... especially the Ronnie stuff." 

Caitlin rolls her glass in her hands, smiles a smile that's slightly bitter. "Well, I guess the therapy worked then." Cisco looks like he doesn't know what to say to that and she looks down as she bites her lip. "He's still gone, Cisco." That's said more quietly, sadly. "It doesn't seem to matter if it happened five years ago or four... he's not coming back." 

"He saved a lot of people," Cisco tells her. "Again." That does make her smile but she doesn't say anything as she raises her glass to her lips. Cisco grimaces as he rubs his hands over his knees. "Are you staying here? In town, I mean."

Caitlin is silent for a moment before she answers. "I think so." Joe's been a cop for over twenty years, is well used to listening to people's words and hearing what they're not saying as much as what they are, so he hears how deliberately Caitlin weighs her words. "I've taken some shifts at a medical clinic downtown..."

"Working with live patients?" Cisco's eyes are wide as saucers and again he clamps his lips shut. Again, Caitlin just smiles. 

"I do still have a medical licence," she points out. "And in my experience, most of those clinics don't care if you haven't been practising if you're willing to work a twelve hour shift for a pittance." She looks down into her glass, swirls the liquid around. "I've moved around a lot for the last five years," she admits. "And I didn't need the money... do you know some life assurance policies pay out even if you're not married?" Her voice is sad suddenly, very far away and Joe sees Cisco swallow hard, take a swig of his own drink. "I didn't need the money," she says again. "I just wanted to help people."

Cisco's smile is as sad as her voice. "We always did." 

She looks up then, meets his gaze and raises her glass. "Yeah." He clinks his against hers and when they drink, the atmosphere between them lightens considerably. 

That's the first time that Joe thinks Team Flash might just have found themselves a new member. 

Nothing he sees over the next few weeks changes his mind on that score. Although she steadfastly refuses to set foot inside STAR Labs, Caitlin helps out whenever she can, even coming to his house to patch Barry and Wally up a couple of times. She and Iris become fast friends and Caitlin joins them for pizza nights and movie nights, fits in with them easily. Joe sees Cisco eyeing her curiously every now and then, wonders if the younger man has vibed something they need to be worried about but by chance, he overhears a conversation between Barry and Cisco that explains the looks. 

"She never used to be like this," Cisco tells Barry, his brow furrowed. "Relaxed. Smiling. Warm." He screws up his eyes, thinking. "No, that's not right... she was. Sometimes. But that was around Ronnie." 

"She's been through a lot, man," Barry reminds him. "And you didn't see her for five years. You're not the same person either." 

Cisco's face darkens. "Got that right," he says and Barry quickly changes the subject. 

Joe doesn't think about that conversation again until he meets Caitlin in Jitters one day. He's sitting at a table enjoying having some time to himself, the newspaper in front of him and the sports pages open, when he looks up and sees her standing in the queue. Her eyes widen when she glances over at him and he lifts his hand in a wave. She gets her order and makes her way to his table and without conscious thought he stands, pulls out the other chair for her. 

"I'm not intruding, am I?" she asks as she places her tray down. She looks genuinely concerned and he lifts one eyebrow. 

"The baseball stats can wait," he tells her and he laughs when she wrinkles her nose. "Sorry," he says, holding up a hand. "That's the look Barry gets when I talk about sports, I've just never seen it on someone else's face." 

"Ah." Her lips twitch with unmistakable amusement. "I thought someone with his skill set would have been naturally talented." 

She sounds genuinely curious. "He could always run," Joe allows, "but I tried to teach him to box once, it didn't go so well. And as for the time he tried out for the football team..." The mere memory makes him wince and chuckle all at once but before Caitlin can ask, he presses his lips shut. "Let's just say we're not allowed to talk about it." 

Caitlin chuckles too as she raises her coffee cup to her lips, taking a tiny sip to check the temperature. She winces, puts it down almost straight away. "My lips are sealed," she says as she reaches out, touches one finger to the edge of the cup. For the barest second, there's the tiniest wisp of mist that appears but it vanishes so quickly Joe would swear he imagined it, were it not for the fact that she lifts the cup again, takes a longer sip and sets it back down with a smile of satisfaction on her face. "After all, you keep my secrets." 

"Damn." Joe can't keep the awe out of his voice. "Bet you're a hit at parties." 

That provokes a giggle from her lips and Joe can't help but think what a nice sound that is. "You don't want to know how many iced coffees - literal iced coffees - I made before I perfected that," she admits. Then she tilts her head, the tiniest of lines appearing between her eyes. "Cisco and Barry keep looking at me when I use my abilities... like they're scared of me." She's keeping her voice down, leans in across the table as she speaks. "Is there something they're not telling me?" 

"Earth-2." Joe leans in too, drops his voice. He knows Barry and Cisco didn't want to tell Caitlin this but then again, if they were going to keep secrets, they should get themselves some better poker faces. "They met your doppelgänger there." He glances around to make sure no-one is listening. "She was not the friendliest of people." He does decide to leave out the part where that version of Caitlin Snow killed that Earth's Joe West. 

Caitlin sips her drink again as she digests that fact. "I figured as much," she says quietly. "I even asked Cisco about it, he got all high-pitched and hand-wavey..." She moves her hands in the air in illustration and Joe recognises the gesture immediately. He's seen it often enough. 

"He didn't want to freak you out," he told her, truthfully as it happens. "He thought you'd heard enough for the time being." 

"I'm not so sure he's wrong." Caitlin's eyes are thoughtful as her gaze drifts across the coffee shop, the people inside it. "But then... sometimes I think it's better to know the risks... what could happen." She shivers suddenly and Joe takes a guess at what she's getting at. 

"So you can be on guard against it?"

The smile that brightens her face tells him he was right. "You must understand, you're a cop, you assess risks all the time..."

He nods. "I do. But the stuff going on here for the last five years?" He blows a steady breath of air between his lips. "Half the time I don't know what to make of it. None of us do. So we just figure it out on the fly and hope like hell it turns out ok." 

"For what it's worth?" That smile is still there, warm and bright. "I think you're doing all right." 

Joe feels a smile tug at his own lips and he gives in to it. At the same time, there's another feeling, another emotion tugging at his gut and lower. It takes him a moment to realise what it is and when he does, he's so surprised that it takes everything in him not to let his reaction show on his face. 

It's attraction, he realises, pure and simple. 

Except there's nothing pure and simple about it. She's almost young enough to be his daughter, only a couple of years older than Iris and Barry. She's friends with his kids, for crying out loud, probably still grieving her lost husband and even if none of those things were true, she'd still be way out of his league. 

So he pushes the feeling aside, asks her about her work at the clinic and as she rolls her eyes and starts to tell him about how hectic it is and how she really needed this coffee, it's almost enough to make him forget about it. 

Almost. 

Because after that, he's reminded of it every time he sees her, every time she flashes a grin in his direction, every time she rolls her eyes - good naturedly of course - at something Cisco has said. He's reminded of it in the times when they talk together when it's just the two of them, whether it's when the whole gang are gathered at his place, or if they just happen to run into one another at Jitters, which is happening more and more often lately. 

He's especially reminded of it when he looks around and meets her eyes across a room and he sees a look there that he hasn't seen since his relationship with Cecile crashed and burned last year. 

But no, he tells himself. Caitlin's a friend, his kids' friend and he's not going there. 

He tells himself that until Iris comes to the precinct one evening, eyes dark and troubled, telling him that she needs to talk to him. She doesn't ask if she can, doesn't ask if she's interrupting and that, more than anything, has him throwing down his pen, grabbing his jacket and heading out the door with her. 

On the way to the cars, she tells him the story, how that morning Cisco had been on the trail of the latest meta human threat with Barry and Wally and he'd gotten whammied pretty badly. They'd got him back to STAR Labs where he'd begun having intermittent seizures that had scared the hell out of both of them, all the more so because they knew they couldn't bring him to a hospital, not with him being a meta human - who knew what the machines there would show? In between seizures, Cisco had told them to call Caitlin but by the time Barry called her, Cisco was in the throes of another attack. "We can't take him to your clinic," Barry had told Caitlin. "We can't move him... But I can come and get you."

Of course, Caitlin had refused, as she always did, to go to STAR Labs. Until Barry had pleaded with her, told her he was afraid Cisco was dying. There had been a horrible pause, Barry had told Iris, before Caitlin had finally said, "OK." 

A whoosh of air later, she was standing in front of Cisco and she'd gone straight to work, running tests and synthesising serums and she'd managed to work out what was wrong and stabilise Cisco in a matter of hours, though she was insisting he stay put for at least twenty four hours. "She's still there too," Iris tells Joe as they stand in front of his car. "I tried to tell her she should go home, get some rest, she didn't listen to me." She shrugs, gives him a tiny smile. "I thought you might have better luck." 

"Me?" Joe frowns, genuinely mystified. "Why me?" 

Iris looks at him like he's speaking a foreign language. "You two are close," she says and he narrows his eyes, tilts his head. Iris actually laughs at him. "Dad, you are... You're always together at movie night, all those coffee dates at Jitters..." 

"Dates?" He says the word like it has one less letter and Iris lifts one eyebrow. 

"Look, if I'm reading things wrong, then I apologise. But I'm not wrong about the fact that, apart from Cisco, she's closer to you than to any of us. And you didn't see her in STAR Labs today... I think she really needs a friend." 

Put that way, Joe doesn't ask any other questions. He gets into his car and drives to STAR Labs, Iris's headlights in the rearview mirror. When he gets there, he goes straight to the medical bay, sees Cisco lying on the same bed where Barry had lain for so long and he can't help the shiver that runs through him. Cisco grins when he sees him, gives him a thumbs up and, by his bedside, Barry turns to smile at him. His smile, like it always does, turns brighter when he sees Iris, when she walks over towards him and tucks her hand into his. 

Joe smiles at the sight of them, but when Barry's chin jerks at something over Joe's shoulder, when Joe turns his head to look in that direction, the smile disappears quickly. 

Caitlin is standing with her back to Cisco's bed, a trolley of medical equipment in front of her which she seems to be sorting through. From clear across the room, Joe can see that her shoulders are rigid with tension and as her hands move, he can see them tremble. He glances back at Iris and Barry, nods once and moves across the room to Caitlin, coming to stand beside her, dropping one hand onto her shoulder. 

"Hey," he says and it takes everything in him not to recoil at the touch - she's freezing. 

When she looks up at him though, it takes everything in him not to pull her into his arms. Her face is pale, eyes rimmed red, full of so much pain that it takes his breath away. "Come here," he says softly and he almost expects her to resist but she lets him lead her out of the room, across the cortex and into a corner where they can't be seen from the med bay. 

He stands with his back to the med bay, manoeuvres her in front of him so that she's effectively hidden from view. Even on the short walk, her trembling has become more pronounced and when he lays his hands on her shoulders and she looks up at him, there are tears in her eyes. "Hey," he says, keeping his voice low, "it's ok." 

Caitlin moves her head from side to side just once, a tiny shake that is all it takes for the first tear to fall. "Caitlin..." he whispers and that's it. The sound of her name on his lips is all that it takes to have falling very quietly, but very thoroughly, to pieces. Tears stream down her cheeks as she stares up at him and she leans into him almost like she can't stand up straight anymore, letting her head fall into the crook of his neck. Her arms stay by her sides but he doesn't have the slightest hesitation in wrapping his arms around her shoulders, pulling her tight against him, supporting her weight, supporting her. 

He doesn't move until her shoulders have stopped trembling and not even then. Instead he waits until she lifts her head, pulls back just enough so he can look her in the eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispers but he's having no truck with that. 

"Don't," he says simply. "Let's get you home, OK?" 

She doesn't argue and, with one of his arms around her shoulders, with her leaning against him, they walk out into the night. 

Home turns out to be a small apartment in a brownstone building in a nice part of Central City. She's silent on the ride there, silent until they're inside the parking garage and he's turned off the engine. "I'm sorry," she says again, picking at a spot of lint on her skirt that's so small Joe has trouble seeing it. "For falling apart like that..."

"You don't need to apologise," he tells her, his hand reaching out, covering her fingers. They're still cool, but she's warmer than she was back in STAR Labs. He decides to take that as a positive sign. "That was the first time you've been back there." 

It's not a question but she nods anyway. "All I could think of was that I was going to lose someone else I cared about there," she whispers, fresh tears standing in her eyes. 

"But you didn't." His fingers tighten on hers. "You saved Cisco's life." He squeezes again. "This was a good day." 

Caitlin laughs, tilts her head back so that it's touching the headrest. "Once he came to, he kept telling me I'm officially part of the team now," she tells him. "He wants to design me an outfit." 

Joe bites back a laugh. "You realise he's probably already got one half made, right?" 

The way her head whips around to him tells him loud and clear she hasn't even considered that possibility and the naked shock on her face makes it impossible to keep back his laugh. He tries to rein it in but a couple of seconds later, she's laughing too and her hand is warm in his now and she's never actually looked more beautiful. 

That realisation must show in his face as his laugh fades and hers does too. Her eyes drop to his lips, flick back up to his eyes, then down to his lips again. Her breath stutters as she bites her lip and he's moving before he's even aware he's doing it, covering her lips with his, kissing her softly, carefully. For the briefest of moments he expects her to pull away but instead he feels her sigh, feels her reach up to touch his cheek. 

His own breath is none too steady as he draws back, lets his forehead fall against hers. "Should I have done that?" he hears himself say and the little giggle she gives in response is music to his ears. 

"We should have done that weeks ago," she tells him as she brings her lips to his again and his momma always used to tell him it was rude for a gentleman to argue with a lady, so he doesn't. 

He knows, even as he walks her to her door, that things aren't going to be straightforward, aren't going to be easy for them. Even if, apparently, Iris doesn't see anything wrong with them being more than friends, there's still an age gap. She's still dealing with her powers, working out how she can reconcile them, not to mention her past, with the new life she's trying to build. He's been on his own for a long time, has had two relationships in the last three decades and neither has exactly ended well. 

It's not going to be easy. 

But he thinks, as he sits with her wrapped in his arms, the two of them necking on her couch like a pair of teenagers, he thinks that whatever this is, it just might be worth it.


End file.
